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Developing a learner involvement strategy at Couldson College

Coulsdon College is a post-16 citizenship champion and is currently developing a Learner involvement Strategy in partnership with Strode's College.

This work is a response to the requirements set down in the recent FE white paper, Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances, for all FE providers to have a learner involvement strategy in place by September 2007.

The College decided that the first thing to do was to launch the concept of learner involvement with the staff. This was done at a whole staff inset session led by the vice principal for around 100 staff. A presentation and activities were used at the staff INSET at the college to give staff an opportunity to explore the issues. The aims of the session were to:

  • To examine the attitudes and behaviours that underpin the College mission and values and to link those to the concept of learner involvement;
  • To explore the concept of learner involvement and its potential impact on learning;
  • To enable all colleagues to suggest policy, structural, or attitudinal changes that are needed to move the College forward

This was a whole staff INSET session that involved approximately 100 people. The morning was a lecture, punctuated by activities. In the afternoon, curriculum teams met together to discuss the key themes of the morning and to commit to changes that they need to make. Extracts from the following texts were used:

1. Learner voice By Tim Rudd, Futurelab; Fiona Colligan, Educational Consultant; Rajay Naik, English Secondary Students Association (ESSA) a Futurelab publication.
2. Research available on www.geoffpetty.com
3. “24 hour feedback”, a research paper of academic Dr Phil Race from http://www.phil-race.com/downloads.html.

Every curriculum team reflected critically on current Learner Involvement strategies and have committed, in writing, to changes that need to be made for September 2007.

As a result of this INSET session vital links between the Learner Involvement Strategy (LIS) and improvements in teaching & learning were made. It was agreed to review what/how learners are taught about learning. Part of this review will include deconstructing the learning vocabulary that teachers use all the time but that learners may not fully understand. It was agreed to recognise that real dialogue cannot take place until language is shared. These ideas have been incorporated into the Coulsdon College Learner Involvement Strategy.

See also a presentation created for a workshop illustrating the work on learner involvement strategies at Coulsdon College which demonstrates the stages of learner involvement that could be applied to any organisation.

A conference involving students took place on 20 June - the programme for the workshop gave students an opportunity to t0ake part in discussions about how they could get involved in decision-making at college and what a learner involvement strategy could look like. The aims of the conference were to:

  • Launch the Learner Engagement Strategy
  • Showcase previous learners’ involvement in citizenship projects
  • Identify learners who are willing to be involved in any of the following during the coming academic year: Student representatives, Student Council/Parliament, Citizenship and ambassador activities

Students engaged in a series of activities designed to elicit student feedback to help draft the strategy. One tutor group showed the delegates a 20 minute extract of a DVD on youth violence they had made. This proved to be one of the most popular elements of the afternoon.

After speeches, the session was group-based, with the speakers acting as facilitators on each table and then feeding back throughout the afternoon to maintain pace. Activities were ended with an interactive voting session and students were asked to say whether they agreed or not with the final 5 questions on the conference sheet (Do you think we should try these strategies? Texting all students with college news, online voting , termly Principal’s Question Time, students joining the lesson Observation team) They agreed with all 5.

During the evaluation and commitment session at the end of the conference students were given the opportunity to commit to getting involved in a learner voice activity such as standing for election, helping with events or being part of a focus group - most did which has provided staff with a list of names to go back to next term when the college elections are launched. The student feedback has helped shaped the college's learner involvement strategy and prioritise work for 07/08. Significantly, when asked to rank which areas it was most important for students to be involved in, the following were identified:

  • Teaching: how a lesson is delivered
  • IT services
  • Enrichment

Further developments and plans on learner involvement also include:

  • Introducing a Principal’s Question Time
  • Students will be helping to create/deliver/evaluate the enrichment offer in term two
  • Our SAR/quality procedures have been revised to ensure students are more active contributors
  • EduText, a software package that will allow mass texting has been purchased
  • Purchasing electronic voting units for in class and focus group work is being considered
  • Responsibility for the Student Union has been reassigned back to a Senior Manager
  • A governor has been designated as lead on the board for the learner involvement strategy
  • A student liaison officer has been appointed
  • NUS support in training staff and students in the representative role to be sought

For more information contact Yolanda Botham: Yolanda.botham@coulsdon.ac.uk